Ashland City (part 37 of 57)

Mr. Bushnell died at his homestead in Vermillion township, August 16, 1846, aged seventy-four years. He was the father of the late Dr. William Bushnell and the grandfather of the Hon. M. B. Bushnell of Mansfield, who is vice president of the Richland County Historical Society and a life member. of The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

When Mr. Workman came to the country the territory of Vermillion and Montgomery were united in one township, under the name of the former; and Robert Newell and James Wallace were the two justices of the peace. Mr. Workman was elected in 1817, and was the successor of Mr. Wallace.

His nearest neighbors were Johnnycake and his squaw. He was a quiet friendly neighbor, and Mr. Workman took his first lessons in hunting wild game of this Indian.

John Scott immigrated to Vermillion township March 22, 1819, having purchased two hundred and twenty acres on the west line of the township.

As evidence of the integrity of his customers at that time, Mr. Scott says that, during the first four years of his business life in Hayesville, he has no recollection of having lost a dollar by bad debts. With reference to girls who supported themselves by weekly wages, he generally gave credit when it was asked, and the money was always promptly paid, according to promise.

Not until several years after Mr. Palmer came (in 1811) to the country, was there any church building in the township. The first clergymen were Presbyterian missionaries, who, in traveling to and from their missions among the Senecas and Wyandots, made it a practice for many years to preach at the house of Mr. Palmer and others. The first church building erected in the township stood upon land now owned by Joseph Boyd, and occupied the place near where Mr. Boyd's mill now stands. It was a very large building for the time, belonged to the Methodist denomination, was made of unhewn logs, and erected in about 1818. To aid in raising the building, persons came from Mansfield and other places equally distant. When quarterly meetings were held in this building, they were generally attended by people from a great distance. So utterly unable were residents of the neighborhood to entertain their friends from abroad, that the latter would often bring with them their supplies of food, cooking utensils, bed clothing, etc., and during the intervals when the church was not used for divine service, the capacious wooden fireplace would be used by the women, cooking food for themselves and families, in fact, converting the building into one for eating and lodging, as well as for religious purposes. This necessity was the result, not of any want of hospitality, but of the absence of food and house room existing in the vicinity.

would be as great a curiosity as a wild Indian among the present generation. Their coarse, wholesome food, and active lives, secured the health of the inhabitants, and obviated the necessity for physicians.

William Karnahan emigrated from Jefferson county, Ohio, April 16, 1815, with his family. The country at this date was very sparsely settled, his nearest neighbor being Mr. Emerine, located one and a half miles distant. About this distance from where he erected his cabin, on the farm later owned by Mr. Stoufer, a den of rattlesnakes was discovered, near the entrance to which as many as twenty-five were killed in a single day. Another den, on or near the farm later owned by Robert Cowan, as many as seventy-five of these reptiles were killed in a single day. On one occasion the family were assailed by a panther, who approached the house on an evening within a few rods, and only disappeared after the family had secured the doors and windows of their cabin, and kindled a brilliant fire.

John Farver immigrated to Vermillion township, with his wife and two children, on the 29th of April, 1817, and commenced improvements on his farm, being the west half of the northeast quarter of section 2.

The nearest mill at this time was Shrimplin's, on Owl creek. The trip occupied from four to six days, and was made with four horses and a wagon, which would carry from forty to fifty bushels.

There was no wheat raised or for sale in the county at this time. Corn would bring eighty and one hundred cents. The animal food was principally venison and other wild game. About 1819 and 1820 the county began to raise a surplus of agricultural products, and from this time forward until the completion of the Ohio canal, produce would hardly bear transportation to market, (which was then Sandusky City). Mr. Harper on one occasion took a load of flour to market and exchanged his flour for salt, giving two barrels of flour and half a dollar in cash for each barrel of salt. The first substantial encouragement given the farming and industrial interests was the market afforded by the completion of the Ohio canal to Massillon.

At a meeting of the Ashland Pioneer Society held in 1876, Thomas Bushnell being called upon, responded by giving a short history of his life and stated that he was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, in 1815. His father removed to Hayesville in 1821 and settled on the same place which he (Thomas) then owned.

The first wheat, within the recollection of Mr. Bushnell, offered for cash, was about 1822 or 1823, at the mill built by Lake and Bentley, and at the time referred to owned by Lake and Larwill, and which mill was better known in recent times as Goudy's mill, in the southeast part of Vermillion township. One hundred bushels were offered on this occasion for twenty-five dollars.

Perry township was surveyed in 1807 by Jonathan Cox. The township was organized September 14, 1814, and had jurisdiction over the territory of Jackson until 1819. The population of the township in 1820 was five hundred and fiftyeight; in 1860, one thousand nine hundred and eleven. At the first election, in April, 1825, Daniel Williams and Daniel Smith were elected trustees, and William Spencer, clerk. Rowsburg is the only town in the township and was laid out April 15, 1835, by Michael D. Row. At the time the plat was recorded, there was not an inhabitant within the limits of what now forms the town. A public sale of lots was held in May, 1835, and the first lot was sold to Jacob Carr for thirty-four dollars. The population of Rowsburg in 1860 was two hundred, but the village has increased materially in size since that time.

The first church in the township was a Presbyterian organization and was under the care of the Presbytery of Richland for several years. It was known as the Muddyfork church, so called from the branch of the Mohican by that name, near to which the house of worship stood. In 1831, by request of the congregation, the name of the church was changed to Mount Hope. In 1822, a Methodist church organization was formed at the house of John Hellman, since then the Lutherans, the Albrights and the United Brethren have organized congregations there.

For a number of years there was no demand for farm produce, except by newly arrived immigrants. To them wheat sold at fifty cents; oats about twelve and a half cents; corn twenty-five cents; salt twelve dollars and fifteen dollars per barrel. A small gristmill on Killbuck creek, constructed of beech poles, covered with split boards called clapboards, was built previous to 1820 by John Naftsinger. The bolting was done chiefly by hand.

There was an abundance of ginseng root in the forests. There were many who made it a business to gather it in the spring of the year. It was worth twenty-five cents per pound, and as it was one of the few productions of the country that commanded cash, large quantities were annually gathered. Michael Row, Sr., under the impression that the current rates paid by merchants in the country were much below its intrinsic value, transported a load to Philadelphia, in a one-horse wagon, and found it a paying trip.

Deer, raccoon, and wild turkey were plenty. Domestic linen and woolen goods composed the principal material for male and female dresses. The men were often dressed in buckskin pantaloons. In such attire the early settlers and their families enjoyed as much true happiness and independence as ''Cesar with a senate at his heels."'

Indian wigwams were numerous, built with small poles, front partly open, and covered with black ash or white elm bark, peeled from three to five feet long. Small troughs were made of the ash or elm bark to save or catch sugar water, as numbers were to be seen about large sugar trees that had been notched a number of years previous, the notches being covered with a new formation of wood amounting in thickness to two or three inches. Many trinkets or jewelry were found on cultivating the land. In the fall of 1822 there were nine Indian men and three squaws came in and encamped near the same ground for the purpose of hunting and trapping.

A pioneer said: 'Day wages were about fifty cents in trade in harvest ; fifty cents or a bushel of wheat for reaping; little cradling done in harvest. Crain was threshed mostly with horses, though some was done with the flail. Flax was raised for the lint. Every housewife and maiden could spin flax or wool, and nearly one-half of them could weave. The price of spinning was a shilling a dozen, or by the week seventy-five cents, and twelve and a half cents for weaving linen, such as was worn for shirts; weaving of coarser fabrics, less. Muslin shirts were not worn. Female apparel consisted chiefly of home-made linen, linsey, or flannel, each endeavoring to excel in quality as well as variety. When muslin was first used among laboring men it cost twenty-five cents to thirty-eight cents per yard.''

In 1815 or 1816, (about twenty years before Rowsburg was laid out) an effort was made by John Raver to establish a town on the Wooster road between the present site of Rowsburg and the Muddyfork.

Beyond the naming of the village, which was called Elizabethtown, and the offering of some lots at a public sale, no progress was made in building up the proposed town, and the scheme was abandoned.

There were two churches in the township in 1824: one Presbyterian, called Mount Hope, near the northeast corner of the township; the other a Lutheran, on the south side of the township. The size of each was about thirty by thirty- - five feet, and both were built of hewn logs.

The first grist and sawmill in Perry township was erected by John Raver, in 1818, on the present site of the mill owned by Arthur Campbell, about onefourth of a mile north of Rowsburg, on what is known as Raver's Run. This mill, when built, was not only the first in the township, but also the first within what is now the limits of Ashland county. Prior to this, corn and corn meal were obtained on Owl creek, at Odell's, and at Stibb's, near Wooster.

It is supposed from the large number that were discovered and killed in the vicinity, that a rattlesnake den existed in a ledge of rocks near the northwest corner of land later owned by Mr. Cory.

Mifflm township was surveyed in 1807, and settlements were made there in 1809. Before the creation of Ashland county, Mifflin was in Richland and was a full township, but it was divided when Ashland was erected, less than one-half of the territory and population falling within the boundaries of the new county. For the most part the western limit is the center of the Blackfork.

The surface is generally broken and hilly, but the soil yields bountifully to cultivation. The township is well watered by the Blackfork and smaller streams.

Long before Mifflin was settled by white men, it was a favorite hunting ground for the Indians, as all kinds of game abounded in the primeval forests. The settlement and history of Mifflin township have been similar to that of the other townships of the county. In the beginning there were dangers from savages and from the climatic diseases of a new country. But in time Mifflin grew, improved and prospered, keeping step with her sister townships and is hopeful that trolley cars will in a few years traverse her territory.

count the mountains; and Mifflin is a small place unless you count its environing hills and its chain of beautiful lakes, the latter lying placidly between the village and the Blackfork of the Mohican.

Among the oldtime residents of Mifflin township mention should be made of J. F. Benninghof, who was born in Germany and came with his parents to America when he was seven years of age and settled in Mifflin township a few years later, where he became quite prominent and served for a number of years as Justice of the peace. As a printer, he held a ''case'' in a number of offices, both German and English, but is now living in retirement in Mansfield.

Prominent among the first settlers were the Bradens, the Croningers, the Cullers, the Harlands, the Hersheys, the Selbys, the Stamans, the Zeimers, the Copuses, and others.

The Petersburg Lakes

Those who have never visited the lakes may want to know more about them, for the contemplated improvements will make the place more noted. The number and location of the lakes, the size and depth of each, and other matters pertaining to the locality are objects of inquiry now, and it is the purpose of this article to give information along these lines.

The Petersburg lakes are situated in Ashland county, eight miles east of Mansfield, and are three in number, forming a chain. The upper lake is the smallest, having an area of only about ten acres, and is called Mud lake. The middle, called the Bell lake, has an area of about thirty acres, and the lower or Big lake (sometimes called Culler's) has an area of fifty to sixty acres, and is a half-mile or more in length. There is a surface connection between the lakes, and it is supposed there is also a subterrean one. There is an outlet from the lower lake into the Blackfork, a short distance to the west. The lower lake has a depth of from fifty to one hundred feet. The lakes are fed by subterranean springs from the Mifflin hills on the east, and the waters are clear and cold. These lakes are noted for their abundance of fish and the locality for its myriads of mosquitoes.

Interlaken, Switzerland, is not a large town, it is said, unless you count the mountains; and Mifflin is a small village, unless you count the Petersburg (or Mifflin) lakes that le between the town and the Blackfork. These lakes are evidently counted - figuratively - and have aided in making Mifflin one of the most noted villages in this part of Ohio, and its prominence will be still further enhanced when a trolley line connects it with the city of Mansfield.

fork and are surrounded by native forests, the greater part of their direct environs being marshy ground, too wet for cultivation. However, the elevation on which the summer hotel stands is high and dry and commands a good view of the lake. The Big lake is a clear, beautiful sheet of water, but the forest surroundings impart a feeling of loneliness, and causes one to exclaim: '*O, Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?''

When General Hedges made a survey of that locality in 1807, he was embarrassed over the variations of his compass. In order to test the accuracy of the survey, the lines were resurveyed, still the variations existed. He thought the chaining might be imperfect, and had the lines surveyed the third time, with the same results. Jonathan Cox, in 1808, had a similar experience. The consensus of opinion was that magnetic ores in the earth influenced the needle.

But the only ore yet discovered in that village is ""bog ore'' at the lakes. Bog iron-ore is a mineral of variable composition and is found in alluvial soils, in bogs and lakes. There may, however, be other ore in that locality, which, if unearthed, would add another page to that storied valley and material wealth to its people.

"'Unele'' Jonas' lake is in Mifflin township, Richland county, but being within a mile of the Ashland county line and its history being a very interesting one, an account of its creation is here given:

'"Unele'' Jonas' lake is in Mifflin township, seven miles east of Mansfield. It covers an area of eight acres and its depth is about seventy feet. This little body of water has been called by different names, such as Sites', Swearingen's and others, but in the past was simply '' Uncle Jonas' lake,'' after Jonas Ballyet, the first owner. It is now more generally known as the lake where the wagon load of hay sunk, meadow and all, according to tradition.

In 1821, Jonas Ballyet entered the northwest quarter of section 15, Mifflin township, and near its center he found a lake covering about an acre. Its immediate surrounding was level land to the extent of eight acres, all enclosed with a rim of hills of gentle slope, except a place at the east side where the ground was lower as though inviting an outlet for the pent-up waters of the lake. Through this depression, ''Uncle Jonas'' cut a ditch with the view of making the low land about the lake tillable.

The lake lies a mile west of the Blackfork of the Mohican. and between them is a tract of marshy land called the Black Swamp, into this a ditch was eut from the lake.

''Uncle Jonas' '' theory seemed quite plausible, but he was later confronted with a condition he had not anticipated. The ditch was opened on the 25th day of July, 1846, and was of sufficient depth to lower the surface of the lake eight feet. On the day following the greater part of the level land surrounding the lake, comprising about six acres, was engulfed - sank out of sight - leaving only the tops of the higher trees, with which the land had been covered, visible. And in time the tree tops also disappeared. The opinion was that the lake was of greater size beneath than was apparent upon its surface and that lowering the water caused the ground to break off from the rim of hills, and being thus loosened, sank to the bottom.

This sinking caused the earth to quake and tremble for miles around, and alarmed the people of that vicinity, some thinking the ''end of the world'' had come, began to pray as they had never prayed before.

As this incident occurred during the Millerism period, people were more prone to attribute the trembling and jar to heavenly than to earthly causes, for although there may not have been a Millerite in that neighborhood, yet the doctrine and teachings of the Rev. William Miller had been so universally disseminated and propagated that they influenced many unconsciously.

The time set by Miller for the ''second coming of Christ'' was the year 1843, as he interpreted the prophecies, but as the expected event did not occur other dates were given later, and the people were admonished to say not in their hearts, ''My Lord delayeth His coming.''

Digging this ditch outlet to the lake was a losing enterprise to ''Uncle Jonas,'' for instead of reclaiming land, he lost six acres thereof, timber and all.

A few years later there was another sinking of grounds into the water, increasing the lake to its present size of between eight and nine acres, but as the low land has all been engulfed, no apprehension is felt that any similar occurrence will take place in the future, as it is not believed that the lake extends beneath the hills.

Prior to.this land sinking episode, catfish, sunfish and some other varieties abounded in the lake in great quantities but are not so abundant there now.

The water of the lake when viewed as a body is an ocean-green in tint of coloring, yet when dipped up seems pure and clear. The lake is circular in form and in its hill-frame setting is one of the most beautiful of the many attractive places in old Richland. The slope at the southeast is covered by a shady grove, from whose retreat one might imagine some highland maid might

The lake is not only beautiful in sunshine but is interesting in storms, when the thunder's deep reverberations roll like billows over its waters. And when the gleaming rainbow sheds it lustre upon the placid surface, no artist can sketch its beauty, while in the background of the picture may be read by faith the eternal promise that the earth shall not again be destroyed by water.

Orange township was surveyed in 1807 and settled in 1814. _ It is one of the best agricultural townships in the county, and is well supplied with water. The township was surveyed by Maxfield Ludlow and was organized by the commissioners of Richland county in 1818. The Jeromefork and several tributaries, while they afford very little water power, are living streams and waters a majority of the farms in the township, rendering the land particularly valuable for stock growing.

Wesley Richards was born in Loudon county, West Virginia, August 9, 1793, came to Orange township in an early day and died September 12, 1882, aged eighty-nine years, one month and three days. Mrs. Mary Rickett, born in West Bethlehem township, Washington county, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1796, came to Orange township in 1822 and died in the winter of 1883, aged eighty-five years, eleven months and eleven days. She was the mother of fifteen children, had forty-five grandchildren and sixty-one great-grandchildren. Valentine Vance, born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, December 18, 1797, and in 1814 came with his father to Canton, Ohio, thence to Richland county near Mansfield. thence to Orange township where he died November 20, 1882, aged eighty-four vears, eleven months and eleven days. Mrs. Margaret Heiffner, wife of John Heiffner and daughter of Ludwie Cline was born in Montgomery township, March 23. 1818, was married to John Heiffner, July 7, 1835, and died in Orange township December 15, 1882, aged sixty-six years, eight months and twenty-two days. John Richey was born in Virginia in 1801, in 1804 came with his parents to Columbiana county, Ohio, and in 1833 eame to Orange township where he died February 23, 1883. aged eighty-two vears. Mrs. Eliza Thomas, wife of Josiah Thomas. whose maiden name was Zimmerman, was born in Union county, Pennsylvania, December 25, 1809, came to Montgomery township in the spring of 1829, and died in Orange township, March 25, 1883, aged seventy-three years and three months. Mrs. Mary Donley, born in Ameriea, her parents came from Ireland in 1776. She lived to be about one hundred and four years old and died in Ashland on Sunday, October 1, 1882. and was buried at Orange.

Vachel Metcalf and Amos Norris were the first settlers in Orange. They removed into it from Bunn's Settlement. in Mohican township, in the spring of 1814. Jacob Young and Jacob Crouse emigrated from Columbiana county, during the same spring, without their families. | Young built a camphouse within a few rods of where the bridge erosses the Jeromefork of the Mohican, on the road now leading from Ashland to Orange.

The total number of white families in Orange township, during the winter commencing December, 1814, amounted to five. In addition to these. however, Solomon Urie and his two sons, Samuel-and Thomas, were in the township. |

In the spring of 1815, Thomas Green, Mordeeai Chileote, Martin Hester, Patrick Murray, Christian and Nicholas Fast, and Henry Hampson removed to the township with their families. During the same year. John Bishop, an unmarried man, came into the township.

site of the one now owned by Samuel Leidigh, two miles west of the present village of Orange. The stones were ''hard-heads'' and would grind sixty bushels per day. The mill commenced operations in March, 1816. That the settlers in Orange and adjacent townships appreciated the advantages of this mill, may be understood when it is stated that, prior to its erection, the nearest mill was that of Stibbs, one mile east of Wooster. While the millwrights were engaged in the erection of the watermill, they would employ their evenings in aiding Mr. Mason's family to work the handmill in producing the necessary supplies for the following day. |

William Patterson made his first visit to Orange township in the spring of 1815, and entered at the federal land office the northeast quarter of section 7, Orange township. During the same year, he returned to his native place, in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and in 1818 revisited the country with a view of making the land he had entered the place of his future residence. In that year he "'tomahawked,'' to use a current phrase of the country at that time, ten acres of his land. By this term ''tomahawked,'' the unsophisticated of this time will understand to mean, that he cut down, with his axe, from that number of acres, the timber of eighteen inches in circumference and under, and arranged the brush around the base of the trees that were above that size.

During this winter, the families of Martin and Jacob Mason, having exhausted their supplies of breadstuffs, availed themselves of a deep snow that had fallen, and left home on sleds for Stibb's mill. The only road to Wooster led by way of the old Indian village called Jerometown, near where Jeromeville now stands. On arriving at the mill they were grievously disappointed to find its operations suspended by the ice. This winter, it may be here observed, was one of remarkable rigor, the snow, during a period of forty days, remaining upon the ground to the depth of at least a foot. Realizing the necessity of immediately supplying their families with something in the form of breadstuffs, they procured a few bushels of shelled corn and started on their way home. The families were without meat, butter, milk, or potatoes. Their only cow, a noble animal, and which had been the main reliance of the family of Martin Mason for food, had died a short time previously from ''browsing'' upon Buckeye buds. The sole dependence of the families, therefore, was upon their corn. Of this they made hominy, and with the single exception of salt, and the meat of a raccoon, the two families subsisted upon this food a period of two weeks. They were indebted for the 'coon mentioned, to an Indian named James Lyons, who had tracked and treed the animal, and offered the meat to his white friends if they would secure it and give him the skin. His offer was gladly accepted - the tree (an immense one) cut down - the animal killed and dressed, and its meat divided between the two families. A few days after this, two other Indians, Jim Jerk and Billy Mature, came into the house of Martin Mason with a bear, for the meat of which he paid them eight silver dollars. This meat Mr. Mason divided with his brother's family, and the hominy being cooked in bear's oil, made,sumptuous fare, and in a few days the weather relaxed so that they were enabled to procure cornmeal from Stibb's, and venison and other wild meats

The first meal making implements of which nearly every family had one, were hominy blocks, a hole burned in a stump, with a sweep so fixed that two men could pound corn into meal; the sieve was a deerskin stretched over a hoop, with small holes made therein by the point of a hot iron.

Philip Fluke came to Orange township in 1816. Although Mr. Fluke had previously resided in an old settled country, he referred to his experience in the wilderness of Orange township as embracing the happiest period of his life. The health of himself and family, with the exception of ague attacks during the first year, was good. He realized from his first year's tillage sufficient wheat and corn to subsist his family and stock, and to supply, to a limited extent, new neighbors that came in. Prosperity attended all his efforts, and the accumulations of this world's goods, and the exchange of his old cabin home for the fine brick dwelling in which he for many years resided, did not, according to his own testimony, add to his stock of happiness.

Jacob Hiffner, Jr., emigrated with his family, consisting of his wife and three daughters, from Franklin county, Pennsylvania, to Orange township, in November, 1817. Four families from Pennsylvania traveled in company, and settled in Orange township at the same time, namely, those of his father, Jacob Hiffner, Sr., of his brother, Frederick Hiffner, and of his brother-in-law, Ridenour.

Mr. Hiffner erected a temporary cabin upon the land of his father, which afforded shelter for his family during the winter of 1817-18. In the meantime he had constructed a rude cabin upon his own place, and in April, 1818, removed his family and scanty stock of household effects into it, and engaged in the improvement of his land. When he commenced housekeeping, his cabin was without a door, chimney or floor - the fire being made upon the ground in the center of the cabin, and the smoke finding its way out chiefly through an open place in one end of the roof designed for the future chimney of the cabin. Mr. Hiffner averred that the best pone he ever ate was made of soft and rotten corn, purchased at Stibb's mill, and eaten with an appetite sharpened by a long fast and severe bodily toil. Being skilled in the use of the rifle, his family never suffered for want of venison or other wild meat. Good breadstuffs, however, were not in the country, and the most miserable quality, which the swine of this day would reject, could only be obtained at a great distance, and at one dollar per bushel. His severest trials passed away with the first year.

In the early settlement of the township the milling was done at Beam's, on the Blackfork, and down on the White Woman. The trip to the last named mills was made in canoes. It generally required thirteen days to make it, and, in the first years of immigration, very little corn being raised, it was purchased at the mills at one dollar per bushel. In later years purchases of salt, leather, iron, etc., were made at Sandusky City, or Portland, as it was then called. Coffee sold for fifty cents, in specie, per pound.

Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Fast came to Ohio from Pennsylvania when their son Wilson Fast was a small boy. During the Civil war Wilson was a Union soldier in the One Hundred and Second Ohio Infantry, and was on board the ill-fated Sultana on his way home when that awful disaster occurred, but he successfully battled with the waves, and at last reached his home, where he was warmly welcomed by his relatives and friends.

The first Methodist Episcopal church, at Orange, was a frame structure, built in 1829, by Robert Williamson and John P. Anderson. The church was erected under the preaching of Rev. Haney and Hazzard, local preachers.

The first Presbyterian church was the old Hopewell, west of Ashland one and one-half miles. Rev. Matthews and a few members built the church. There was also occasional preaching near Philip Flukes', in Martin Hester's house, in 1828.

The first coopers were Thomas and Solomon Urie and John Y. Burge who also made wooden moldboards for plows, as well as plows themselves, from 1820 to 1830.

The first stores: Isaac Cutter, 1828; Cutter, Metcalf, Norris & Co., 1829; Thomas Smurr & Co., 1833; Charles R. Deming, 1835; George W. Urie and Daniel Campbell, 1841.

The first tailor in Orange was Brown, in 1829, who made buckskin breeches, moccasins, ete., and Mrs. John Murray, who also made gloves and moccasins of deer skins.

Ruggles township was organized in 1826, and until the erection of Ashland county in 1846, belonged to Huron county. It derived its name from Almon

In 1820 its territory was included in Bethel township, which had a population that year of one hundred and sixty-four. The population of Ruggles in 1830 was two hundred and seventy-one and in 1840 it was one thousand two hundred and forty-four.

Ruggles township, as well as the whole of the original territory of Huron county, was within the ''Fire Land'' district. These fire lands embraced a tract of country containing seven hundred and eighty-one square miles, or nearly five hundred thousand acres, in the western part of the Western Reserve. The name originated from the circumstance that the state of Connecticut had made a grant of these lands in 1792, as a donation to certain sufferers by fire, occasioned by the invading English during the Revolutionary war, particularly at New London, Fairfield, and Norwalk. This tract was surveyed into townships of about five miles square each; and these townships are then subdivided into four equal quarters, No. 1 being the southeast, No. 2 the northeast, No. 3 the northwest, and No. 4 the southwest. And for individual convenience, these are again subdivided, by private surveys, into lots of from fifty to five hundred acres each, to suit individual purchasers. The surveys were made in 1808.

Daniel Beach immigrated to Ruggles township on the 2d of August, 1823. He died in 1862. His was the first family that settled in the township. He was born in Connecticut.

Aldrich Carver and family, consisting of three persons, settled in Ruggles, in 1825. His was the fourth family then in the township. He had emigrated from Cayuga county, New York.

Bradford Sturtevant and family emigrated from New York in 1816, and settled in Ruggles township, Ashland county, in 1823, being the second pioneer in the township. The lands of the township at that time, Mr. Sturtevant said, were monopolized by non-residents - speculators. A daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant's, born May 17, 1825, was the first white female child born in the township. /

Salmon Weston came to Ruggles township in June, 1825, and was the first white settler in the eastern portion of the township. He removed from Connecticut, and occupied one month in traveling from his old home to his new. The journey was made from Warren, Connecticut, to Albany, New York, in wagons; from Albany to Buffalo, on the Erie canal, from the latter place to Sandusky City, on the schooner Superior, and from Sandusky to Ruggles in wagons.

At a meeting of the Firelands Historical Society held at Norwalk, December 12, 1906, Russell Godfrey said he would be a resident of Huron county yet, if Ruggles township had not been sliced off and given to Ashland. He further said:

""T want to make a few remarks. When Ethan Pray's name was mentioned, it brought to my mind a little incident that transpired many years ago that gave a coloring at least to my life. In the winter of 1840 and 1841, Ethan Pray taught school in North Fairfield. I was a pupil in that school. I was about six years old at that time. The teacher, Mr. Pray always opened the school with prayer. I was a small boy and full of mischief. One morning while he was engaged in that service, I had a piece of chalk in my pocket. I took it out. His back was turned, and I marked down the back of his old blue swallow tail with that piece of chalk, little thinking that he felt it. When he got through, he pulled off his coat, went and got his whip and I think he gave me as good a dressing as a boy ever got. But that whipping was the best lesson I ever learned in school. It taught me never to interfere with public worship of God in any form from that day to this, and I feel thankful today for that lesson. About ten years ago, I met Mr. Pray here on the square and was introduced to him. I told him of this incident. 'Well,' he said, 'if it did you any good, I am glad of it.' "'

The law to erect the county of Ashland passed the General Assembly of Ohio on the 24th of February, 1846. Its present territory originally formed the townships of Vermillion, Montgomery, Orange, Green and Hanover, with parts of Clear Creek, Milton, Mifflin, and Monroe,* in Richland county; also, the townships of Sullivan and Troy, in Lorain county; all except the eastern tier of sections of the townships of Jackson, Perry, Mohican, and the fractioned townships of Lake, in Wayne county, and the whole of Ruggles, in Huron county. The counties from which Ashland was made contained originally an aggregate of two thousand nine hundred and forty square miles and ninety-

For many years after its organization Richland county possesed the largest of any county in Ohio. This fact gave rise to a multitude of new county schemes. There-was scarcely ''a laid-out'' town outside a limit of twelve miles from Mansfield that had not annually beleagured the legislature with applications for new counties for the benefit of town lot owners. Within what is now Ashland county, there were numerous schemes which proposed to effect the territories of some of the counties from which Ashland was finally made - prom- inent among which were the proposed new counties of Ellsworth, with the seat of justice at Sullivan; the county of Mohican, with the seat of justice at Loudonville; the county of Vermillion, with the seat of justice at Hayesville ; also, applications from Jerome, Orange and Savannah for new counties, with the seats of justice at their several towns; and at a later date, a new county for the benefit of real estate owners at Ashland. The success of the last-named project, by the passage of the act of the 24th of February, 1846, and by the vote of the electors of the new county on the first Monday of April of the same year, was regarded as a final settlement of all rival schemes; but the erection, at the legislative session of 1847-48, of the County of Morrow, a long pending and rival ''claim,'' was a yet further invasion of the territory of '' Old Richland."' The checks imposed upon the general assembly by the constitution of 1851, with respect to the erection of new counties and the removals of county seats, are among the wisest provisions of that instrument, and destroyed the occupation of a horde of mercenary lobbies, whose corruptions had attained such magnitude as generally to control the legislation of the state. The constitution of 1802 simply prescribed the minimum area to four hundred square miles, without any guarantees for private rights involved in the changes of county lines and county seats. The legislative power over these subjects was supreme. One legislature could ''permanently establish,'' and their successors could, and often did, as permanently unsettle and unmake ''as a breath hath made.'' Rights which might be truly termed ''vested,'' acquired under the most solemn legislative sanctions of former years, were wantonly invaded; and in an hour of fancied security men would find the accumulations of years virtually confiscated by ''solemn'' legislative enactment - an enactment secured by the corps of '"'lobbies'' who held control of every avenue leading to the law-making halls - and not only that, but had invaded the sanctity of the premises within the legislative bar and dictated the votes of the worse than ''wooden men'' who were often sent as ''representatives of the people.'' Unless other abuses have recently reappeared at Columbus; and the lobbies found other prey, the corruptionists have had a long fast at Ohio's capital.

For many years the settlement of Troy was retarded to a greater degree than the adjacent townships on the north, east and west, in consequence of the ownership of the land by Eastern speculators. For some years prior to 1845, the system of legislation prevailed in Ohio, the effect and probably the design of which was to confiscate lands of non-resident owners, or cause them to sell the same. For some years the lands of non-residents were valued for taxation the same as improved farms. The roads were made and improved bya tax of a certain amount per acre, the wilderness lands of the speculators being taxed the Same per acre as were the best and most improved farms of the settlers. |The same rule applied in the erection of schoolhouses and in the support of the schools. This legislative policy soon brought the lands of non-residents into the market, and the lands were taken up by actual settlers and improved, adding much to the wealth and increasing the population of the township. The only town in the years agone in Troy township was Troy village, the name of which has been changed to Nova.

Jackson township was surveyed in 1807, by Mr. Ludlow and was organized February 12, 1819, out of the territory of Perry township. The population of the township in 1820 was two hundred and thirty-six.. The whole number of voters at the first election was sixty-seven. The following is the list:

Charles Hoy removed with his family to Jackson township in May, 1817. At the date of the arrival of Mr. Hoy in the township the following named persons were the heads of families that constituted its population, viz: Isaac Lyons, John Jackson, Daniel and John Davoult, and Noah Long. The family of either Isaac Lyons or Noah Long were the first inhabitants. Of the heads of families above named, not one is now a resident of the township.

Josiah Lee immigrated to Jackson township from Ontario county, New York, in July, 1819. Mr. Lee often traveled from his home to Wooster and back, a distance of forty miles, within a single day. In two instances, himself, Mr. Lafler, and Mr. Mason, were required to attend ''militia musters'' on the Big (Blachleyville) Prairie, a distance of twenty miles. They were ordered to be at the place of rendezvous at ten o'clock a. m. and would be dismissed at 4 o'clock p.m. This travel of forty miles, and at least five hours drill, were accomplished on foot within the same day and night. Prior to 1830 there were no markets at the lake for grain or other farm produce. During this year, however, a demand was created, by a large immigration to Michigan, for produce, and wheat at the lake ports this year sold at fifty-six cents per bushel; oats twenty-two cents. Charleston at the mouth of Black river, was regarded as the most favorable point for reaching the lake, for the reason that the streams were less difficult to cross than those which intervened between here and Cleveland. The farmers were greatly elated in consequence of the prices of this year, and as the demand was expected to continue another season, an unusually large breadth of ground was sown in wheat during the fall of 1830; but the expectations of farmers were not realized, as in 1831 wheat fell to forty cents per bushel, and for oats there was no demand.

A Fatiguing March

Charles Hoy removed his family from Stark county to Jackson township, Ashland county, in May, 1817. At the time of their arrival there were but five families in the township. In March, 1819, Mr. Hoy, after his purchase of the quarter in section 27, which was then in a wilderness condition, at the close of the day he had raised his cabin, (hands to obtain which were procured from neighborhoods as far distant as where Rowsburg now stands,) he undertook to return to his family, a distance of five miles. He had only blazed trees to guide him. When he had accomplished about half the distance, a violent snowstorm and darkness suddenly arrested his progress. He undertook to find the blazed trees by feeling with his hands; but soon found this impracticable, and came to the conclusion that he would be either compelled to spend the inclement night in the forest or search out the bed of Wolf run, and follow its course to the Muddy Fork, and then up the latter stream to his home, whjch stood upon its banks. By the devious course of these streams, the distance was nine or ten miles, over fallen timber and brush, and encountering the whole route a violent storm; and, when he finally reached home, it was between twelve and one o'clock in the morning. He found Mrs. Hoy sitting up, unable to sleep, and terrified with the fear that her husband might fall a victim to the inclement weather or savage beasts. Mr. Hoy had seen service in the war of 1812 and had endured some other hardships; but he says that never, before or since has he performed a more exhausting march.

There were very few horses in the country at that time, and comparatively little use for them, as there was no surplus produce for market, and no attainable markets, even had there been horses, wagons, and roads, suitable for transportation. Religious meetings (which, there being no church buildings, were always held at private houses) and social visits were made on foot - men and women often traveling a distanee of five or six miles (carrying children in their arms) for these purposes.

Main Street, Residential Section Looking West, Ashland Pourdey Street, Ashland

of its predecessor, Helltown. Helltown wag an Indian village, on the right bank of the Clearfork, a mile and a half below Newville. Small mounds are still discernable there upon a knoll where it is supposed Indians are buried. The name ''Helltown'' is said to have meant village of the clear stream. How long the town existed is not known, but in its day it was the home of Tom Lyon, Thomas Armstrong and other leading Indians of the Delaware tribe.

The site of Helltown was well chosen ; the ground sloped to the east, and the river laved the base of the plat upon which the town was built. From a bank a stream bubbled forth a stream of cool water, which rippled musically down the declivity of the hill to the river below.

More than a century has passed since the Indians, to whom the hunt and the chase were alluring, roamed over the hills and along the valleys of the Clearfork, and still -

In 1782, Helltown was abandoned, the Indians fleeing in alarm when they heard of the massacre of the Moravian Indians at Gnatenhutten, some going to the Upper Sandusky country and others joining a party of white renegrades of whom Tom Green was the leader, founded the town of Greentown on the Blackfork. The Indians killed at Gnadenhutten were of the Delaware tribe and kinsmen of the Helltown squad.

At the time of the advent of the white settlers here the village of Greentown contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred families, who lived in pole cabins. In the center of the town was a council house built of logs. While the Indians there were principally Delawares, there were also Mingoes among them, and some writers have confounded Greentown with the ''Mingoe cabbins'' spoken of by Major Rogers, but Dr. Hill thought the ''cabbins"' referred to were on the Jeromefork, near the place where the Mingo village of ''Mohickan Johnstown'' was afterwards located.

The white settlers maintained friendly relations with the Indians for some years, but when war with Great Britain was impending it was noticed that both the Greentown and the Jeromeville Indians made frequent trips to Sandusky, and when they returned were always well supplied with blankets, tomahawks and ammunition, evidently supplied to them by British agents who were engaged in trying to ingratiate themselves with the Indians against the whites.

In June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain, after which the estranged relations between the settlers and the savages developed into threatened rupture and resulted in the forced evacuation of Greentown, followed with the murders of the Zeimers, Copus and Ruffner, also other crimes and atrocities. The reasons generally assigned for the killing of Copus was that he had accompanied Captain Douglas to Greentown and had 'advised the Indians to a peaceful removal. And it is stated that the Indians had a grudge against the white settlers up the valley, whom they charged with tying firebrands to their horses' tails.

The Indians also claimed that the settlers made them drunk on metheglin and then cheated them in trades. Metheglin was distilled from wild honey, which was plentiful in those days. It was a favorite drink, was very intoxicating and it is said that those who indulged in this delicious nectar could hear the bees buzzing for several days thereafter. The white settlers often. joined the Indians in athletic sports on the campus of their village, in which ''run, hop, step and jump'' and wrestling were the favorite amusements, but the Indians never took defeat graciously.

Greentown was situated on the east side of the Blackfork, three miles above Perrysville. There the Blackfork, after straightening somewhat from its tortuous course and running south for a short distance, makes a graceful curve to the east at the southwest limits of the Greentown grounds, courses along the base of the south side of the ridge, then turns again to the south and resumes its zigzag wanderings until its waters unite with those of other ''forks'' and form the Mohican river. Greentown was founded in 1782 and was destroyed by fire in 1812, thirty years after its founding. The cabins comprising the village stood principally upon the rolling plateau-like summit of the hill, each Indian selecting a site to suit himself, with but little regard for streets or regularity. A sycamore tree, which in the olden time cast its shade over the council house of the tribe, still stands hke a monument from the past, grim and white, stretching its branches like skeleton arms in the attitude of benediction. A wild cherrytree stands several rods northeast, around which there was formerly a circular mound, evidently made by the Indians, and still discernible; but whether it was used as a circus ring for athletic sports, or as a receptacle, is a matter of conjecture. Many think it was for the latter, as trinkets, if not valuables, have been taken from it; but no general exhumation was ever made..

The burial ground is at the west end of the knoll upon which Greentown was situated and is somewhat triangular in shape. Heretofore, the ground has been held in superstitious, if not sacred, veneration. But it will soon be turned over to the plowshare and the agriculturist.

Caldwell's Historical Atlas of Ashland county states that the Greentown Indians were removed to Piqua, Miami county, by Captain Douglas and Captain James Cunningham, which implies that there were two companies of soldiers in the escort, but the number of troops is not given. The route of march was via Lucas to Mansfield, where they encamped near Ritter's run, west of South Main street for several days. After being joined by the Indians from Jeromeville, Colonel Samuel Kratzer conducted the command and removed the savages to Piqua, crossing Alum creek at Fort Cheshire, in Delaware county.

To appreciate places of historic note, one must enter into the feelings by reading its history and learning its traditions. Standing upon the site of old Greentown, the writer realized that the valley, whose broad and fertile acres spread out before him, was the place where the civilization of this part of the

Greentown was burned in August, 1812, by a party of soldiers who were absent from their commands. To understand the burning of 'the village it is necessary, at least briefly, to review the situation of the country at that time, the summer and early autumn of 1812, especially that summer in the Blackfork valley, a summer in which the earth was bringing forth a bountiful harvest; a summer luxuriant with flowers and musical with the carol of birds by day, while at night the moon was wont to peer atwixt the leafy branches of the forest, casting its pale glimmers of light through the languorous atmosphere ere it sailed forth into the open space of the sky to keep watch and ward over those who slept, as if to say, ''Peace! be still.'' But those peaceful days and restful nights of nature seemed but a mockery, for they were days of toil and nights of watching for the white settlers who worked hard and dwelt in insecurity, for the Indians were liable to come upon them, like the proverbial ''thief in the night,'' unawares.

As the times became more threatening, with indications of an Indian outbreak probable at any moment, the several families kept sentinels on guard to warn them of the approach of stealthy foes.

The Burning Of Greentown

The burning of Greentown has been criticized and censured by sentimentalists who regarded it as a breach of faith with the ''noble red man'' who was cruelly driven from his ''happy hunting grounds'' into forced exile.

But the burning of that village was not a breach of faith, for the officers did not sanction the act. It was done without warrant by five or six stragglers who had dropped out of the ranks for that purpose. They were militiamen who had suffered wrongs too grievous to be borne from the bloody hands of the Indians and it was but human nature for them to retaliate.

It seems like a maudlin sentimentality to dilate upon the wrongs which the white settlers committed against the Indians, for the few misdeeds that may have been done by the pioneers were too insignificant to be given prominence in history.

In the early history of France we read of the dark and bloody acts of the Druids and how they immolated human life in their forest temples, but it was as a religious rite, as an atoning or propitiating sacrifice and while we stand appalled at the bloody spectacle, our condemnation is somewhat mollified when we consider the motive that prompted the act.

But with the Indians it was cruelty for cruelty's sake. They were savages and through all the civilizing influences of a century, they are savages still. Even those who have been educated at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at the expense of the general government, drift back into barbarism, as a rule, after they return to the west. ,

Let those who have tears to shed over the burning of Greentown read the accounts of the Wyoming massacre and its aftermath of butcheries and then consider the Indians' bloody deeds in our own state and county - of cruelty, torture and death; these three, and then tell us where is their claim for charity ! Settlers have returned from the hunt and chase and found their cabins burnt and their families murdered. The bloody tomahawk and gory scalping knife had done their work, and mutilation had been added to murder. Notwithstanding the beautifully drawn and charmingly colored word picture given us by novelists history teaches us that the Indian is cruel, deceitful and blood-thirsty by nature and devoid of the redeeming traits of humanity.

By William A. Duff

Ashland, Ohio, is a city of intense, vigorous individuality. Substantial, progressive and up-to-date, having doubled in population in the past decade and still enjoying a healthy, vigorous growth, it stands among the cities of the Buckeye state an example of civic push and patriotism - a city that has found itself. Its population now is eight thousand and every indication is that this will be doubled within the next few years, for its people - employer and employes, business and professional men - are demonstrating constantly what can be accomplished in building up a city where the citizens work together loyally, persistently and harmoniously for the public good, not only in encouraging home enterprises that have started up and in bringing in new manufacturing institutions, but in looking after the highest and best welfare of its people and supporting those movements which make for the betterment of humanity and a more abundant life.

The Ashland of today is a city of automobiles and wide, brick-paved streets, rapidly growing manufacturing institutions, churches and public buildings that would do credit to a much larger city, beautiful residences, hospitable homes, and public spirited citizens.

In the courthouse park stands a beautiful monument to the soldiers and sailors of Ashland county, the gift of a noblehearted woman, Mrs. Mary F. Freer, now deceased, in behalf of her husband, the late Jonas Freer, wealthy stock-buyer and banker. In the tower of the Methodist church opposite the courthouse is the town clock, presented by her during her lifetime, and south of the city is the Ashland County Children's Home, a farm of ninety-one acres, another of her benefactions.

The public spirit of Ashland people is evidenced in the building of the new Young Men's Christian Association home for which forty thousand dollars was raised, in a brief campaign, a few months ago. Its Men's Federation which at its last annual banquet had some twelve hundred men in attendance has been a power in the moral uplift of the city and for higher ideals of citizenship.

Ashland's postal receipts are the largest of any city of its size in the United States and its wide awake Commercial Club of which former Mayor A. 8. Miller is the secretary, is constantly on the lookout for new industries which will be a benefit to the city. Within the past year several new and growing industries were added. The new Myers building, a fine large five-story brick block at the corner of Main and Center streets is the latest addition to the business part of Ashland.

Although Ashland is nearly a century old - William Montgomery laid it out back in 1815 and named it Uniontown - it has every characteristic of vigorous youth. Its early settlers were sturdy industrious people of indomitable will and strength of personality; men and women of conviction, lovers of home and all that makes home the brightest spot on earth, and these traits of character stand out clearly in their descendants who have helped to make Ashland what it is today. Some of these early settlers came from New York and Connecticut and many others were Pennsylvania Germans. When the postoffice was established in 1822 and the name of the village was changed to Ashland it was a settlement of some twenty log huts. In 1846 when Ashland county was formed Ashland had become a village of thirteen hundred population. Despite its increased importance as the county seat the growth of Ashland was slow even after the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, now the Erie, was completed through the town about the close of the civil war. In 1880 the population had increased to three thousand. In 1838 the old Ashland Academy was founded and for ten years or more exerted a wonderful educational influence in this part of the country. Inseparably connected with the academy in the memory of the older residents of Ashland is Lorin Andrews afterward president of Kenyon College and the first volunteer in Ohio in the war of the rebellion.

He was born in a log hut, the fourth white child to be born in the new settlement of Uniontown. I have often heard my grandmother tell of his helpfulness to the young people, his geniality and warmheartedness and his power as an orator. For some years he was at the head of the academy and he left the impress of his character and teachings for good on the lives of hundreds.

In 1850 the academy became a part of the union schools of Ashland and the high educational standard of the old academy has always characterized the public schools, the high school numbering among its alumni alumnae scores of men and women who have attained high places in the world's activities.

The central building erected nearly thirty years ago at a cost of thirty-two thousand dollars is on the old academy grounds. The Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Stubbs, now at the head of the University of Nevada, was superintendent of the Ashland schools for a number of years. The presént superintendent is Professor J. A. McDowell, who has just been reelected for three years.

There are six public school buildings in Ashland. The new Walnut street school building, large and splendidly equipped, was opened at the fall term, 1908, succeeding the little old brick building that was one of the landmarks of South Ashland. Ashland is the seat of Ashland College, an institution founded by the Dunkard church about thirtv years ago. The college stands on an eminence in the south part of the city and is one of the first buildings to meet the eye of the incoming visitor. The college passed through a long period of advers- ity but a few years ago was established on a broad and permanent basis, with a splendid endowment, an excellent and devoted faculty and now has over two hundred students, from many states. The Rev. Dr. J. Allen Miller, the dean of the institution, has given some of the best years of his life to the building up of the college, which is a credit to the Brethren denomination to which it belongs. From its theological seminary have gone out many splendid men who are doing valiant service for the church.

For many years Ashland was a typical county seat. It grew a little from year to year. Wealthy farmers feeling the weight of years turned over their farms to their sons and came into town to live a retired life. County officers who moved in from other parts of the county when they assumed their duties at the courthouse usually made the town their home after their terms of office expired. New residences were built to replace old ones and gradually the frame structures on Main street gave way to substantial brick business blocks. For years the only paved street Ashland possessed was cobblestone paved Main, a trip over which was fraught with jolts and jars. Some years ago this relic of other days was taken up and a brick street laid. Now Ashland has twelve miles of brick paved streets and several other residence streets are being paved this year.

It seems only a short time since the lamplighters made their rounds at eventide in Ashland and again at ten o'clock or thereabouts to turn off the hghts but in reality it is something like twenty years since the electric light plant was put in and are lights adopted for street lighting.

In due time a water works system was installed, water being secured from deep drilled wells northeast of town and pumped to a stand pipe on a height southwest of Ashland thus giving ample pressure. Ashland's water supply is of the purest. A complete sewer system with sewage disposal plant is another of the improvements of later years.

There are three banks in Ashland, the First National, of which J. O. Jennings, now ninety years old, is the president, and Joseph Patterson, cashier ; the Farmers' Bank, of which J. L. Clark is president, George R. Freer, cashier ; and the Ashland Bank and Savings Company, of which I. H. Good is president, and Dr. Levering cashier.

Ashland has free mail delivery and rural delivery over four routes. The Central Union Telephone company has an office here for toll line service but the local exchange is owned by a home company, the Star Telephone company, which also has a number of exchanges in this and adjoining counties. Ashland's newspapers are the daily and weekly Times Gazette and the Press, a weekly both highly ereditable publications.

A new era dawned for Ashland when the Ashland & Wooster Railroad was constructed a dozen years ago. It was the one thing needed to put into rapid motion the forward movement which has made Ashland one of the most prosperous inland cities in the state. This line less than thirty miles long connects Ashland with the Pennsylvania at Custaloga. Its builder was H. B. Camp, a capitalist from Akron, now deceased. Mr. Camp took a great interest in Ashland and assisted in securing new industries for the town, one of them being the

Francis Graham

F. E. and P. A. Myers, owners of Ashland's largest industry, the pump and hay tool works of F. E. Myers & Brothers, which employs some eight hundred men, have been actively identified for years with the forward movement of Ashland. Their influence was potent in securing for Ashland the A. & W. Railroad and various new industries and the extension of the Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus interurban line through Ashland, putting the town in direct trolley connection with Cleveland, Mansfield and Columbus, was brought about in a large measure by the untiring efforts of F. E. Myers, who is now the president of the company. This line is opening up a splendid territory for Ashland business men. Heretofore the smaller towns to the east have had poor facilities for getting to Ashland and back home, now the two hour schedule enables them to do their shopping in Ashland and get home without losing much time. The Ramsey line which has been built from Lorain to Wellington is to be extended to Ashland, probably within the next year and then built south into the coal fields and connect with H. H. Rogers' Tidewater line to the Atlantic coast. The A. & W. is to be a part of the line, having been purchased by the Ramsey people over a year ago.

Ashland has a number of patent medicine and stock-food industries, the Dr. Hess & Clark stock-food plant being the largest concern of the sort in the world. J. L. Clark, one of the proprietors is president of the Farmers' Bank and identified with the Y. M. C. A. of which he is president.

Ashland has a great variety of growing industries which are its pride. It 18 a prosperous city and a city of splendid morals, an advantageous environment for the raising of children. The town has had no saloons for the past four years.

Ashland has many fine churches with large congregations. |The denominations represented are, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Congregational, Christian, United Brethren, Brethren, German Lutheran, Evangelican, Catholic and the Salvation Army. The latter owns a barracks.

Ashland people are enthusiastic over the outlook for the future growth of the city. The town is located in the midst of a remarkably fertile agricultural region. The farmers are prosperous and even from the early days Ashland has been a great trading point.

To Ashland people foreign investments appeal less than in most places. Its moneyed men are convinced that money invested at home yields doubly not only in dividends as the business is developed but in enhancing the value of their other holdings and in bringing into the city more people and new manufactories. It is a far sighted policy and one that is showing substantial results. During the financial stringency of the latter part of 1906 and 1907 Ashland scarcely knew there was any tightening of the purse strings over the nation. Its manufacturing concerns did not shut down; its people were employed steadily and in the midst of the panic some thirty or forty new houses were built.

Rowsburg is in Perry township and was laid out by Michael D. Row, in April, 1835. At the time the plat was recorded there was not an inhabitant within the limits of what now forms the town. The first public sale of lots occurred in May, 1835, and thirty-five dollars was the highest price paid for a lot at that sale. The population of Rowsburg in 1860 was two hundred and it has not increased much in population since. It is situated on the road from Ashland to Wooster.

The country about the village contains many valuable farms, and the patronage of the farmers contribute largely to the growth and prosperity of the town. There is also considerable travel.

Lafayette

Lafayette is in the north part of the township of Perry, was laid out in the spring of 1835, just prior to the platting of Rowsburg. The original proprietors were William Hamilton and John Zimmerman. The location of the village at that time, gave promise of a fair business and considerable growth, being situated on a much traveled road. The country around the village is very productive, and is filled by industrious, frugal, and prosperous farmers.

Perrysburgh, in Jackson township, was laid out October 13, 1830, by Josiah Lee and David Buchanan. It is a small village. The postoffice is named Albion. The village has had a gradual growth.

Troy Center

Troy Center, in the center of Troy township, became a village in 1851, upon the addition of Norris division. The corners were resurveyed and consolidated in 1868, and platted. The village is now called ''Nova.'' The roads from Sullivan and from Ashland cross at right angles, and form the principal streets. It has a fair neighborhood trade.

Nankin

Nankin is in Orange township, was laid out by Amos Norris and John Chilcote, April 22, 1828. It is located on section 28, on a branch of Mohican creek, in the midst of splendid farming lands. It was for many years a flourishing village; but its nearness to the county seat has somewhat checked its growth. The New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railway passes near the village and has a small station and telegraph office.

Remains of one of the most interesting mounds of an ancient race adjoins the town. The track of the old state road leading from Orange to Ashland cut through a margin of the work. The size at the top was about thirty feet in diameter; at the base fifty or sixty feet, and its height from five to six feet above the natural surface. The mound was built upon a natural elevation. In cutting down its side for the purpose of affording a proper roadway, relics of human skeletons,'earthen vessels, and war implements were found.

Sullivan is situated in the center of Sullivan township and was laid out in 1836 by Sylvanus Parmely, Ira Parmely, Joseph Palmer and Joseph Carlton, whose lands formed the corners of the center. It has a good school, and is eligibly situated. Its population is mostly from New England. The postoffice bears the name of the village. Its principal support is derived from the neighborhood trade.

Mifflin was formerly called Petersburg, in Mifflin township, was laid out by William B. James, Peter Deardorff, and Samuel Lewis, June 16, 1816. It was located on the old state road leading from Wooster to Mansfield. For many years it was very thrifty, and, under the old stage era, and during the early settlement of Richland county, was well patronized by the traveling public. George Thomas erected the first tavern, which he conducted until about 1820. The removal of the old stage lines, and the construction of railroads, diverted travel to other lines, and for many years the village has been sustained almost

"Mohicanville was laid out July 2, 1833, by Simeon Beall and Henry Sherradden. 'It is situated in the southwest corner of Mohican township. Population

The water power of the village is the main source of its prosperity. The three principal springs emerge from the summit of the hill on the west side of the town and from their head to the bed of the creek, a distance of about three hundred yards, the fall exceeds one hundred feet, turning three wheels of a combined diameter of sixty-two feet.

An Interesting Trio

Near Nankin, north of Ashland, lives an interesting family of three, maiden sisters, aged respectively ninety-seven, ninety-five and eighty-nine years, making a joint age of two hundred and eighty-one years. Their family name is Coutts, and the ladies are named respectively Katie, Janie and Mary.

There were seven of them - father, mother, two boys and three girls - when they left Alford parish, in the north of Scotland, in 1834, and took ship at Glasgow for America, which they reached after eight weeks at sea.

In time they came to Ashland county, where John Coutts wrestled with the primeval forest to such good purpose that, before he died, he had one hundred and eighty acres under cultivation.

The sons married, the father and mother died, and the Coutts maids became the Three Old Maids. Then their brothers died, but one of them was survived by a son, George Coutts, who latterly has come to run the farm for them. He and his wife and Jimmie live on another part of the farm.

Up to the time of the coming of George Coutts, Aunt Katie ran the farm, plowing, harvesting, milking the cows. Even now she takes a hand at the milking.

If there have ever been any love passages in the lives of the Three Old Maids they came to naught. The neighbors say the suitors were sent about their business with such emphasis that they never came back.

So the Three Old Maids have lived alone, each contributing her share to an almost perfect life, and no man has ever had the right to say, ''It'shall be done thus-and-so in this house.''

They are Scotch - so very Scotch that, though three-quarters of a century have passed since they saw the land of heather, they still have the burr in their tongues, they still eat porridge, they still cling to the Covenanter's faith and eall the church the ''kirk."'

A short time ago the Cleveland Herald sent a special correspondent to Ashland county to interview this interesting trio, and the Sunday following the paper devoted a full page, with colored illustrations, to the remarkable record of the Coutts sisters, whose long and useful lives have won for them the esteem of everybody who admires the sturdy virtues of the Seotch race.

Urna Rt Dao

Perrysville is the only town in Green tow nship, and was laid out June 15, 1815, and was named Freeport. It was the second town founded in what is now Ashland county. The Coulters being very prominent people there, the town was locally known as Coultersville. Some years after its founding, the name of the town was changed from Freeport to Perrysville, in honor of Commodore Perry's victory over the British on Lake Erie. In 1830, the town contained nine inhabitants, but in 1860 the number had increased to one hundred and thirty-five. A pottery plant was established there a few years since, which has added materially to the business and population of the town. The village is pleasantly situated in the fertile valley of the Blackfork, on the line of the Pennsylvania railroad. The town supported an academy for a number of years, an account of which is given elsewhere in this work.

In the communication to the Perrysville Enterprise newspaper, Mrs. Nancy L. Eddy, daughter of the late Hon. John Coulter, states that the quarter section of land now owned by Thomas Beavers, the quarter section on which Perrysville is built, and the quarter owned by Alonzo Shambaugh were all entered by her father in the fall of 1810. Mr. Coulter soon found that one quarter section of unbroken forest was all he could manage, and sold the Beaver quarter to his father, Judge Thomas Coulter, and the one on which Perrysville stands to his uncle, George Crawford. He kept the Shambaugh place and occupied it as a family home for thirty-five years. The first house built in what is now the town of Perrysville, was the cabin on the Crawford place which stood across the road from where the Sam Trease house now stands.

The old store room occupied many years by H. L. Stearns, and the old hotel building lately torn down, were among the first buildings and were probably erected as early as 1814 or 1815.

The first wedding was that of Harvey Hill and Abigal Coulter, which occurred in 1812, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Mr. Scott, of Mt.

The first school was taught by Mrs. John Coulter, in her cabin house on the Shambaugh place; her pupils were mostly young men who felt the need of more learning. Mrs. Coulter's maiden name was Elizabeth Rice, sister of Alexander Rice, and she had in early girlhood the advantages of a boarding school education in Montpelier, Vermont. The first schoolhouse in Perrysville was a log building with a huge fireplace

The ground for the Perrysville cemetery was donated for cemetery purposes by Thomas Coulter, and was deeded ''for cemetery purposes forever,'' so that the land can never be legally used for any other purpose. Additions have been

The first interment in the Perrysville cemetery was that of Solomon Hill and was made in the summer of 1812. The grave is plainly marked by a headstone, and is near the front entrance to the cemetery.

When Solomon Hill died, the settlers were at a loss to know what to do for a coffin. There were no ready-made caskets then, and there was no lumber from which one could be made. It was hot June weather, no way for embalming the dead, and it would take several days to make a trip to Mt. Vernon and that was the nearest place where boards could be obtained to make a coffin. But the emergency was met by one of the grand old pioneers giving his wagon-bed from which a coffin was made. Giving up a wagon-bed at that time was a. great sacrifice. Every man at that first funeral carried a musket, fearing an attack from the Indians. The funeral procession had to cross the Blackfork in canoes to the place of interment.

Garfield is said to have remarked facetiously that a college is a log with a pupil on one end and Mark Hopkins on the other. In little Perrysville, Ashland county, Ohio, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, one could have seen an ordinary frame building in a yard adorned with a few evergreens, called ''Green Town Academy.'' The teacher with high massive forehead and coat of many colors, could have been seen there almost any hour of the day with an enthusiasm that made him blink his eyes, snap hig fingers, and slap his ankles together, impressing on a few students in each of his many classes, the duty of Mastery, and his own unique personality. He was filled with that kind of fire that would drive worthless students out of the town and draw the worthy one to his most remarkable college. Although Professor J. C. Sample went to public schools but two years in his life, I consider him and Professor M. Soy D. D., of Capitol University, Columbus, Ohio, to be the two greatest teachers I have ever met ; - considering his opportunities, I consider Professor Sample the greatest. A little sketch of his life should be preserved for the pleasure and information of his many students. Professor J. C. Sample was born in Harmony, Butler county, Pennsylvania, July 9, 1837. He attended the district common schools but two years, spending the greatest part of the first seventeen years of his life in the woolen factory of his father, Robert 'Sample; he was a born student and thinker. In the fall of 1855 he entered the Presbyterian Academy at North Sewickly, Beaver county, Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1856 he began teaching school and continued until 1860, when he was elected principal of North Sewickly Academy. He remained there until the fall of 1862, when he entered the army, from which in July, 1863, he was honorably discharged. He was called immediately to the principalship of the Sewickly Academy, but did

Because of his known character, he was chosen superintendent of Poland schools where he taught until the fall of 1864, when he resigned and entered Vermillion Institute at Hayesville, Ashland county, Ohio. In the fall of 1865, he was called to take charge of a select school at Perrysville, Ohio, which school he opened the 17th day of September, where he remained until 1869, when he resigned to go with Dr. Dieffendorf to Nebraska City, Nebraska, He there studied and taught with Dr. Dieffendorf for one year in Otto University. He was again recalled to Perrysville, Ashland county, Ohio, where Green Town Academy, in the winter of 1870-71, was born from the select school. The fall of 1873 the presidency of Willamette Valley College, Oregon, was offered to him, but he refused to accept it. On New Year's day of 1878, he was united in marriage with Miss Elizabeth E. Groff, the daughter of Elias Groff, of near Perrysville, and the same year he refused the chair of Classic Instruction in Buchtel College. He continued his work in Green Town Academy until the fall of 1893, when he resigned in favor of Rev. E. Schultz. Rev. Schultz continued the school for a year and then abandoned it. The Academy building served as a Lutheran Mission until in November of 1895, when it was utterly destroyed by fire. The Professor's home, however, remained a college. Up to the fall of 1908 he has occupied his usual seat on one end of the '' John Hopkins' Log,'' and his children the other.

I said Profesor Sample went to school only two years; I should have said seventy-two. He has been a very careful, industrious student all his life. As a linguist he could teach, and has taught, English; Anglo-Saxon; German; Dutch; Spanish; French; Greek and Latin. As a historian I have never met his equal. He is passionately fond of German and English literature and widely acquainted in the original, with English, German, French and Spanish authors. He was as much attached to the study of geology. If you, who happen to be reading these lines, were a student of ''Old Green Town,'' you will remember the shelves on shelves of fossile collecting, that were on view in the library room. The pieces ran into the hundreds, a specially rich and carefully labeled exhibit of the upper Devonian and Sub-Carbonniferous strata of Ashland and adjoining counties. It was destroyed by the fire along with our library. I can well remember the morning of 1878, when I set on the log with its great teacher, and how with half closed eyes, he described the wonderful gold fields of Alaska and the far north, a quarter of a century before they were discovered. The airships were as real to him then as they are to us now. When I stop to think of those days, it is with a grateful heart, I thank God that he gave me Professor Sample for my preparatory college instructor. God placed him just where he belonged. Such a man could not work in any high echeol, nor with any college faculty. He does not believe in any '""hop, skip and jump system of education. ''Instruction'' and '"Education'' are very different terms with him. He used to say ''If you wish instruction, sit down, I will talk to you; if you wish education, here are the books; you must get that yourself. Iam here only to help you; I can't give you that.'' It may seem like a slavish method to most teachers to require a student so thoroughly to master his English grammar, that he could recite it like a declamation and get a grade, on review, of ninety-nine and three fourth per cent., but Professor Sample's students could do that, before he was through with them, and they could talk English as correctly as the best students of other schools could write it.

"'Old Greenleaf!'' Do you remember Friday reviews? - Up to proportion, a half hour of definition; then the other half, through? Solutions? Severer still! Strange, is it not, that we not only approved, but loved this exceeding severity of class discipline? Professor Sample would surely have lost one-half of his pupils, had it been abandoned. It was our school distinction. May this not account for another unique fact? During the thirty years of Green Town history, not a single disgraceful incident occurred to mar her memory of the past, and but one case of public discipline.

But with these old memories, thought and pen would wander far a-field, I know not where! Result of it. Out of perhaps three hundred and fifty young men, whose names appear on the class rolls of Professor Sample's '' Boys,'' nearly, or perhaps altogether one hundred, are now in the professions; more than 'the baker's dozen'' are, in county offices and in all the professions here in Mansfield now. Between three and four thousand pupils have been taught by this woolen factory boy, who went to the public schools only two years. <A descendant of the Scotch Presbyterians, he remained in that church until his marriage with Miss Groff, after which he united with the Lutheran church. He always, in politics, has been a democrat.

Down by the ''Clearfork'' he lives in his large library of well selected books. digging deeper and deeper into the wonderful mysteries of God.

Hayesville is situated near the center of Vermillion township. The original proprietors of the town of Hayesville were Rev. John Cox and Linus Hayes. As the Loudonville and Ashland and Wooster and Mansfield roads crossed at this point, Mr. Cox concluded that it might be the site of a future town.

The town of Hayesville was laid out in the fall of 1830, and the town plat recorded in Mansfield, October 26, 1830. _ The first public sale of lots occurred on the 18th of November of the same year. '

The postoffice at Hays X-Roads was established January 18, 1827, and Mr. Cox appointed postmaster. This office he held until July 1, 1841, when, for political reasons alone, which then existed, but do not now, he was removed, and Mr. D. K. Hull appointed in his place. When the postoffice was established, it was supplied several years by a weekly mail carried on horseback by John Willson.

Hayesville is situated on the east half of the southeast quarter of section 15, township 21, of reserve 15, formerly known by the name of Hayes X-Roads, being the lands of Messrs. J. Cox and L. Hayes. The principal or main street is laid out on the road leading from Wooster to Mansfield, with one row of nineteen lots on each side - each lot sixty feet front by one hundred and twenty feet back. The road leading from' Loudonville to Ashland crosses the above named road at right angles, with twenty lots to the east and eighteen lots to the west.

Dr. Harrison Armstrong located in Hayesville in 1832, and was the first regular physician of the place.. He soon won confidence and for a period of twenty years had a large practice. Dr. David Armstrong, also of Hayesville, possessed many characteristics of his ancestry, both in sense, wit and humor. As a physician and business man he stood deservedly high among his fellowmen, and his death was much mourned.

At an early day educational interests were manifested by the citizens of Vermillion township, schools were established and the youth were taught the rudiments of education.. Later select schools were formed for the benefit of those thought to be beyond the tuition of the common school teacher. In 1844- 45, an academy was founded and a charter for the same was obtained from the Ohio legislature, and the name '' Vermillion Institute'? was bestowed upon the institution.

The old Vermillion Institute at Hayesville is now conducted as a high school under the common school laws of Ohio, and is in charge of Professor D. K. Andrews, a former Richland county boy.

Vermillion Institute was the outcome of a feeling for higher education of the people of the township. The funds to erect suitable buildings were raised by a joint stock company - The site - two acres of land, was donated by W. W. Scott. The corner stone laid in 1845, on Fourth of July - The Rev. Lewis Granger delivered an oration and the school was christened Vermillion Institute. After five years the management passed into the hands of the Wooster Presbyterian.

The people of Hayesville like those of many other small towns live in the glory of the past - we are still proud of the reputation of Vermillion Institute. In its most prosperous years when such institutions were few and far between, its catalogues show that it was unusually well known and that its reputation was more than state-wide. This was particularly the case when that noted educator and distinguished scholar, Rev. Sanders Diefendorf L. L. D. was at its head, under whose skillful management and well earned reputation as a teacher it had from two hundred to three hundred and fifty students enrolled. Many of these ambitious students could be cited by name who have since won high places in the missionary fields, in the pulpit, at the bar, in the medical profession and have become useful and influential citizens in every walk of life, and it is proved by the many letters received by the present citizens of our village and the visits from '"'the old students'' that Vermillion Institute and Dr. Diefendorf are still cherished in the memories of those who are now far.away - and all give credit and regard to the days spent here, for good influences, for scholarship and the brotherly love kindled among the

Savannah

Savannah, Ashland county, was founded by the Rev. John Haney and was laid out in December, 1818. Being at the crossing of two important public roads, the town soon took root and grew into quite an active business place, and when the evolution-fever for the dismemberment of old counties and the formation of new ones raged in Ohio in the '40s, Savannah was a candidate to become a county seat town. But the lines being run from north to south, instead of from the east to the west, the town of Ashland carried off the honors. And Savannah's commercial hopes were not realized, and for a few years affairs seemed as though the little village might not be able to keep its place upon the map.

But in 1849, the Rev. Alexander Scott opened a school in Savannah, which in time became an academy and which has ever since been greatly the life of the town and the pride of the beautiful country surrounding it. Of the six institutions of that kind founded in Ashland county during the academy founding era of fifty years ago, the Savannah academy is the only one in existence today - a verification of the fittest.

In the spring of 1854, the Rev. Alexander Scott was called to the pastorate of the Presbyterian church at Savannah, and soon after his settlement there, it occurred to him that the interests of both the church and the community would be greatly promoted by the founding of an academy there. There were a large number of young people within the bounds of the congregation that' seemed desirous of securing a better education than could be obtained at a common school. Some of these were going to neighboring institutions. Others desired to go but could not afford the expense. With a view of meeting this want, on the 17th of September, 1856, the Rev. Mr. Scott opened a classical school under the name of the ''Savannah Male and Female Academy.'' Sixteen pupils were enrolled the first day, which number was increased to twenty-five before the close of the term, and to about one hundred before the end of the year. The second year, having secured more commodious accommodations, the school became still more prosperous. On Thanksgiving day, 1858, preliminary steps were taken to form an academy association with a board of trustees, which was successfully accomplished within a few weeks, and the institution has been successfully conducted ever since.

The Rev. Mr. Scott the founder of the academy is now eighty-eight years of age resides in the village and looks back with satisfaction to the work he founded and that the institution is prosperous today.

Savannah is built upon a lovely elevation, the base of which to the south and west is washed by the clear waters of the Vermillion river, or rather the headwaters thereof, just after being loosened from the Vermillion lakes, whose clear waters glisten in the sunshine south and east of the village, and where the moonbeams glimmer in sheens of beauty. These lakes are situated just north of the dividing ridge which traverses Ohio from the northeast to the southwest and forms the water shed of the state.

These Vermillion lakes are locally known as the McWilliams and the McLain lakes. The McWilliams lake is the larger of the two and is much deeper. There is a grove near each lake, and they are quite popular resorts for campers during the hot season.

The town is situated upon a beautiful plateau, and the houses of the village are of modern architecture, are kept well painted and the streets are clean and shady, evincing civic pride and betterment that is commendable everywhere. The lakes and lovely landscapes make a charming background to the village picture.

The first instance in which the population of Savannah was taken separate from that of Clear Creek township was in 1860, when it was three hundred and sixty, but it has increased some since. The first settler in the town was Joseph Fast. The first schoolhouse in the place was a-small log building, erected on the northeast corner of the town plat. There are three churches in the village - Methodist, Presbyterian and United Presbyterian. While the most of the buildings in the place are modern and up-to-date, there is one old building yet standing as a relic of the past. It is a rambling old structure, two stories in height and perhaps sixty feet front, and stands on the west side of Main street south of the academy building. It was built for a hotel and was called the **Tallehill.'"'

The Savannah academy has been, since its founding, christian, but not denominational. The ground, upon which the academy buildings stand, was donated for that purpose by the Rev. John Haney, the founder of the village. Daniel D. Templeton was the first president of the board of trustees.

Calling at the academy at a recitation hour, upon being ushered in, we were kindly greeted and confronted a sea of up-turned handsome and intellectual faces of a score of lady pupils, and later had the pleasure of meeting the principal of the school, the Rev. W. J. Machwart, who, with the Rev. H. F. Kerr, his able assistant, keep the institution up to its former high standard.

Jeromeville is in Mohican township, situated where the Mansfield- Wooster old-time stage road crosses the Jeromefork of the Mohican river. The town was laid out February 14, 1815, by Christian Deardorf and William Vaughn, who had purchased the land from John Baptiste Jerome a short time before, and the town. was named Jeromeville in honor of Jerome. It is surrounded by fine farming lands, and no better soil for fertility can be found in the state than those along the branches of the Mohican. The climate is a healthful one, the scenery of the hills and valleys enhancing and romantic and many legends are